Senators, the responsibility is thrown at the door of Congress. Let us
take it. It is our duty in this last hour to seize the pillars of our
Government and uphold them, though we be crushed in the fall. Then what
is our policy? Are we to drift into war? Are we to stand idly by, and
allow war to be precipitated upon the country? Allow an officer of the
army to make war? Allow an unconfirmed head of a department to make war?
Allow a general of the army to make war? Allow a President to make war?
No, sir. Our fathers gave to Congress the power to declare war, and even
to Congress they gave no power to make war upon a State of the Union. It
could not have been given, except as a power to dissolve the Union.
When, then, we see, as is evident to the whole country, that we are
drifting into a war between the United States and an individual State,
does it become the Senate to sit listlessly by and discuss abstract
questions, and read patchwork from the opinions of men now mingled with
the dust? Are we not bound to meet events as they come before us,
manfully and patriotically to struggle with the difficulties which now
oppress the country?
In the message yesterday, we were even told that the District of
Columbia was in danger. In danger of what? From whom comes the danger?
Is there a man here who dreads that the deliberations of this body are
to be interrupted by an armed force? Is there one who would not prefer
to fall with dignity at his station, the representative of a great and
peaceful Government, rather than to be protected by armed bands? And yet
the rumor is--and rumors seem now to be so authentic that we credit them
rather than other means of information--that companies of artillery are
to be quartered in this city to preserve peace, where the laws have
heretofore been supreme, and that this District is to become a camp by
calling out every able-bodied man within its limits to bear arms under
the militia law.
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